Adoption agency in child kidnap probe

From correspondents in Vienna, Agence France-Presse, January 09, 2008 07:25am

VIENNA'S prosecutor is investigating a local adoption agency amid allegations that it may have brought "stolen" children to Austria, the national press agency APA has reported.

The Vienna-based organisation, Family For You, is suspected of "illegal adoption procedures'', the prosecutor's spokesman Gerhard Jarosch told APA, adding that the investigation would help clear up whether the allegations were true.
Family For You was already the subject of an inquiry at the beginning of last year that was later called off.
Now, new evidence obtained in December 2007 means the case can be re-opened, Jarosch said.In an article to be published Wednesday, the Austrian weekly Falter reports the case of a young Ethiopian girl adopted in Austria, who claims she was stolen.
The girl's real mother said a collaborator of Family For You in Ethiopia persuaded her to give up her child and that she received money from the agency, according to the magazine.Falter also cites reports dating back to 2001 from Austrian diplomats in Vietnam and India expressing concern that Family For You collaborated with "dubious representatives'' or orphanages suspected of taking in stolen children.

Family For You's director Petra Fembek rejected any blame in a statement to APA, arguing that her agency only dealt with prospective adoptive parents while others took care of the children.

The organisation announced in July 2007 that it would cease its activities in Ethiopia, citing problems with the local authorities.

Does adoption pose psychological risks? University of Minnesota researchers revisited this controversial issue recently and found that common DSM-IV childhood disorders are more prevalent in adoptees than nonadoptees.1 They also found that adoptees are more likely to have contact with mental health professionals.

The mental health of adoptees has become an increasingly important issue as the number of adoptions in the United States continues to rise. According to the National Council For Adoption,1 there were 130,269 domestic adoptions and 21,063 intercountry adoptions in 2002. (In 1996 there were 108,463 domestic adoptions and 11,303 intercountry adoptions.) US Census figures in 2000 indicated that nearly 1.6 million children and teenagers under 18 years in the US and Puerto Rico are adopted.2
The adoption study compared a random sample of 540 adolescents born in Minnesota, who were not adopted, with a representative sample of adoptees (514 international adoptees and 178 domestic adoptees). The children had been placed by the 3 largest adoption agencies in Minnesota.3

“All of the kids were adopted within the first 2 years of life, but the great majority were adopted within the first year,” said Margaret A. Keyes, PhD, lead author of the study and a research psychologist. “The average age at placement was 4 months. So it is not as if you are looking at 3- and 4-year-olds coming over on a plane from a faraway country.”

At the time of the assessments, the study participants ranged in age from 11 to 21 years. The assessments were rigorous and involved use of the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-Revised (DICA-R) and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-II). (Both had been updated to cover DSM-IV criteria.) The modified DICA-R was also administered to mothers of participants to assess disorders in their children.
Disorders assessed over the lifetime of the adoptees included oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, major depressive disorder, and separation anxiety disorder.
Because of its design, the study makes a major contribution to the medical literature, Keyes told Psychiatric Times. It is one of the first to investigate the prevalence of common DSM-IV childhood disorders in a population-based sample of adopted adolescents. In addition, it improved on the methodology of prior studies.
While previous studies had relied extensively on parent reports and checklist descriptions of problems the kids had, Keyes said, “We had parents and children come into our laboratory at the University of Minnesota and complete individual clinical interviews . . . then we also collected teacher reports.” Two individuals with advanced clinical training reviewed the interviews, according to Keyes, and “they had to come to consensus about every single symptom. That information was then entered into the computer, and the diagnoses were assigned by computer algorithms.”
The odds of having ADHD or ODD were about twice as high in all adopted adolescents. For example, Keyes said, 7 to 8 out of 100 nonadopted adolescents had ADHD compared with 14 to 15 out of 100 of the adoptees. In addition, domestic adoptees had higher odds of having conduct disorder than nonadopted adolescents. Consistent with a meta-analysis by Juffer and van Ijzendoorn,4 the University of Minnesota researchers found that international adoptees had fewer externalizing behavioral problems than domestic adoptees. This finding is somewhat provocative, because some researchers5 have speculated that international adoptees would be at increased risk for mental health problems because they are more likely to have been placed in the adoptive home at a later age, to have experienced preplacement adversity, or to have been exposed to postplacement discrimination.
In contrast, Juffer and van Ijzendoorn (authors of the meta-analysis) suggested that adoptive parents of international adoptees may be better prepared to rear an adopted child than the adoptive parents of domestic adoptees. They also suggested that domestic adoptees may experience greater prenatal exposure to teratogenic substances or have a greater genetic risk for mental health problems than international adoptees.
International adoptees were significantly more anxious than nonadopted adolescents and, according to their parents, had significantly more symptoms of major depressive and separation anxiety disorders.
Despite the study’s findings, Keyes emphasized that most of the children adopted as infants are well-adjusted and psychologically healthy.
“That point gets lost in a discussion of a paper like this,” she said.

Mental health contacts

The adoption study also found that all adopted adolescents were significantly more likely to have had contact with a mental health professional than nonadoptees. “We have known for a long time that adoptees are over-represented in mental health settings,” Keyes said. “One hypothesis is that it relates to referral bias—that adopted parents on average have greater economic resources, are a little bit better educated, and have experience with social services agencies through the process of adopting, so they are more likely to refer their kids to a mental health setting. Now, we think that at least part of that over-representation is due to the fact that the adoptees are experiencing more of the kinds of behavioral problems for which parents refer their kids.”

1. National Council For Adoption. Adoption Factbook IV. Sterling, Va.: National Council For Adoption; 2007.

Mumbai: Nearly 20 years after she was adopted by an American national, 27-year-old Jennifer Haynes is back in Mumbai, seeking action against the Americans for International Aid and Adoption (AIAA), the agency that had processed her adoption papers.

Speaking to DNA on Wednesday evening, Haynes said, "I was fighting with the immigration authorities in the US. They said that my documentation for US citizenship was unfinished and wanted to deport me. With the Indian government accepting my repatriation, I came back in July last year. Ever since, I have been living in a Chembur hostel."
In her petition, which was mentioned before Bombay High Court on Wednesday, Haynes has sought a court direction to Central Adoption Resources Authority (Cara) to deregister AIAA and other foreign agencies, based in the US and registered with the Indian Government, and stop inter-country adoption until she is sent back to her family.
"For all these years, nobody ever told me that I am not an American citizen. It is because of AIAA that I have landed in this situation," Haynes said.
She has stated in the petition that her adoption process was carried out in violation of the UN Convention onthe Rights of the Child, 1989 and the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Inter-Country Adoption.
Her advocate, Pradeep Havnur, said that the petition had been filed, but it was yet to get a date for hearing.
Born in India in 1981, Haynes was adopted by Edward Hancox, who flew her to the US in November 1989. It was the beginning of a nightmare for her. "I was sexually abused by my first foster father. I changed nearly 50 foster homes, but everywhere the abuse continued. Nobody was willing to accept me," she told DNA.
She married Justin Haynes in 2002 and lived with him and their two children -- Kadafi, 5 and Kanassa, 4 -- in Michigan. "My husband works in a construction company. I used to be a housewife. I talk to my family in Michigan only once in two weeks," said a frustrated Haynes. "I want to be back with my family. I am going crazy here."
Not having the necessary documents, she is finding it difficult to get a job in the city. "Now, I have no means to sustain myself. I am surviving on the money that my mother-in-law sends me," she added.

Mumbai: An allegedly fraudulent adoption process carried out by an American agency has landed 27-year-old Jennifer Haynes in trouble after she was deported back to India in July last year.

Haynes, who was adopted by an American twenty years ago, has now moved the Bombay High Court seeking action against the Americans for International Aid and Adoption (AIAA) that had processed her adoption papers.
In her petition she has blamed the AIAA for jeopardising her stay in America as her adoption process was carried out in violation with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 and the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Inter-Country Adoption. Now, she has asked the court to direct the Central Adoption Resources Authority (CARA) to de-register AIAA and other foreign agencies based in United States and registered with the Indian Government and stop inter-country adoption.
Her petition states that she is also a victim of sexual abuse from her foster father and the abuse continued even after changing several foster homes.
After her adoption in 1989 at the age of eight, she was flown to US where she was ill-treated by her foster father. After going through the abuse and rejection from foster homes she married Justin Haynes, who worked in a construction company, in 2002, and lived with him and her two children Kadafi, 5, and Kanassa, 4, in Michigan.
She was also convicted in 2001 and 2004 for illegal possession of cocaine by the US Department of Justice, but was later deported to India as she was of Indian origin after the Indian government accepted her repatriation through the Board of Immigrant Appeals in the US.
She is now keen to go back to US as she has not seen her children due to imprisonment and subsequent deportation. Haynes, who is currently staying in a Chembur Hostel, is also finding it difficult to get a job as she does not have proper documents and is surviving on the money sent by her mother-in-law.
She is seeking direction from court so as to direct the authorities to place all records and quantify exemplary damages against the parties responsible for their acts of denying her right to life.
She also wants to be deported back to the United States and restore her ties with her two American minor children and her American husband.
Until then she should be accorded the status of being the state guest in India by providing shelter, food and money to bear the expenses, said the court.
“The case will come up for hearing on January 30,” her advocate Pradip Havnur said.

Mumbai: At just 27, Jennifer Haynes has experienced more than most people her age. In an exclusive interview with DNA, the thoroughbred American talks about being abruptly deported to her place of birth 20 years after she was adopted by an American couple.

Mayura Janwalkar

A traumatic childhoodBorn in Mumbai on July 29, 1981, Haynes was adopted as an eight-year-old by US nationals, Edward and Melissa Hancox, and flown to USA in November 1989.
However, her life was far from alright. She alleged that she was sexually abused as a child in her first foster home in Georgia. She then changed home 50 times, spending most of her life in Michigan. "I was abused there as well," she said.
"I did not complain to anyone because I was so young and I didn't even know what exactly sex was."
Haynes studied only till Class 10. "I kept moving from one foster home to another and nobody really cared about me. I was treated like a slave in many homes and not even sent to a public school until the government mandated my foster parents to do so."

Life after marriageHaynes met her husband Justin through common friends and tied the knot on July 2, 2002, at the age of 21. "My husband is African-American and a year older than I am. He works with my father-in-law in his construction business," she said.
However, Justin was convicted for possession of drugs in 2002 and served a term in prison. Haynes too was convicted in a case of illegal possession of drugs in July 2004 and was under probation. When her case reached the boardof immigration, it was found that her citizenship formalities were left incomplete at the time of her adoption in 1989. The officials then decided to deport her to India.
"I didn't know I was being deported. I didn't even have my passport. I was just asked to pack my stuff and sent to India. I wasn't even allowed to speak to my family. I called them after I reached Mumbai and told them I was deported," she said.

Back to her birthplaceHaynes landed in India on July 2, 2008 -- her sixth wedding anniversary. "I landed in this country, away from my family and with no money. I had nowhere and nobody I could go to."
However, Haynes found a job as an English teacher and was staying at YWCA in Colaba. But after a month, she was shifted to a home for distressed women in Chembur"I would have started a new life here had it not been for my children back in the US," said a visibly upset Haynes.
"I don't belong here. People treat you differently when you are not like them," she added.
Currently unemployed, Haynes now wants to get a job in a call centre. "I would then be able to have a place of my own. It is difficult for me to sustain myself because my family doesn't send me too much money. They cannot even afford to come down and see me."

Woman adopted by US couple has nowhere to go
(Du site The Times of India, 31 janvier 2009)

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Friday issued notices to the central government and the Central Adoption and Resources Authority (CARA) seeking its response to a petition filed by 27-year-old Jennifer Haines, an Indian adopted by a US about 20 years ago who was sent back to India sans her documents and a nationality.

Advocate Pradeep Havnur, Jennifer's lawyer, said she was sent back on a travel document which was a "mere slip of paper'' and she does not have either her passport of the United States nor of India. He questioned how the Indian government permitted her to enter the country.

The petition, while alleging abuse at the hands of her adoptive father and subsequent foster homes, has also questioned the role of the American agency which facilitated the inter-country and had given the Indian court a solemn undertaking that Jennifer would be taken care of in her adopted home. The HC bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice D Y Chandrachud also issued a notice to the trustee of KUAN-YIN charity trust.

The Centre said it wanted time to file its reply.

Jennifer, who is a mother of two, currently has nowhere to stay and no means to support herself. She wants the HC to get CARA to deregister or ban the Americans for International Aid and Adoptions and similar other agencies which are involved in inter-country adoptions. Jenifer said she also wants to track down her biological mother now that she is in India.

In a shocking incident on the outskirts of Mumbai, a baby was sold off by doctors of a hospital in Vasai.

A complaint to the police states that the baby was sold because the parents could not clear their hospital dues. Two doctors have been arrested as the police investigate the possibility of a child trafficking racket.

The hospital in Vasai where Neha Gaokar delivered in allegedly sold the infant a few weeks after he was born. All this while she was virtually held prisoner at the hospital because her husband had not cleared dues worth Rs 4500.

"The mother did not even know her baby had been sold. She had just signed on some papers," said Pandarinath Mandre, police inspector, Manikpur.

The man who bought the child claims he was unaware of the illegal deal. He says he paid Rs 90,000 as adoption charges and Rs 15,000 to clear hospital bills. He claims the hospital said Neha did not want the child.

"There was no agreement. I was told by the doctor that his brother-in-law would make the agreement," said Steven Mascarenhas, man who bought the child.

Neha was finally rescued by social workers and managed to file a complaintThe hospital doctors Harivardhan Bhansali and his son Ankur are now in custody as the police investigate a wider child trafficking racket. But for Neha the worst is over as she has got her baby back.

Do parents feel the same affection for a child they have adopted as a birth child?

"If something tragic happened to my adopted daughter, I'd be devastated but I wouldn't die. If something happened to either of my two boys who I gave birth to, I feel I would die," says Tina Pattie. "I don't love my daughter any less but it's a different kind of love. With my sons, my love is set in stone. It's that 'die for you love' that would never change, no matter what. With Cheri, it's a love that develops and grows. It's more of a process than an absolute."

Ask most adoptive parents whether they think their love for their children is any different than it would be if they had their own offspring and you can generally expect a resounding no. Very likely, they'll be offended it even crossed your mind.

But in families such as Tina Pattie's - where there are both biological and non-biological children - it's a question that is put to the test. It's a question that gets to the very heart of what it means to be a parent.

"I don't care how close you are to your adopted son or beloved stepdaughter, the love you have for your non-biological child isn't the same as the love you have for your own flesh and blood," wrote Rebecca Walker, the estranged daughter of the prize-winning author Alice Walker in her book, Baby Love. "Yes, I would do anything for my first [non-biological] son, within reason. But I would do anything at all for my second [biological] child without reason, without a doubt."

Her comment attracted much controversy last year but Tina relates to it. She had always wanted three children, so when she was told it could jeopardise her health to have a third baby naturally, she persuaded her husband to adopt. Her preference was for a baby but none was available and they were offered a little girl five weeks off her fourth birthday.

"I was totally and absolutely shocked to find that in the early years, I felt no love at all for her," recalls Tina. "It didn't even feel right to say she was my daughter. The word 'daughter' describes a relationship, a connection - things we didn't have."

There was no one point at which Tina began to love Cheri, now 17. "It was a drip, drip, drip kind of process. Now, I love her a lot. I'm really proud of her and close to her but it has taken time," she says.

Tina has spent a lot of time "unpacking" the disparity in her feelings for her children. "I think there are several things going on. First, she wasn't a newborn baby, like my sons had been. There's nothing quite like a newborn baby. Second, when you get a stranger in your house, you're not going to love them straight away, you're just not.

"Then there was the fact that Cheri was a hugely damaged and difficult child. Even now, I wonder that if she'd been sweet and easy instead of angry and violent whether it would have been different. Instead, I turned from a calm, patient mother into a monster. I'd never felt rage like that, ever. But even in the blackest moments, when there was no connection between us at all, there was never a question that I would give up."

Mary Cooper did adopt a newborn baby but she too found it difficult to use the word "daughter" in the early days. "This was 37 years ago, when I was a psychiatric social worker and had my own three-year-old son," she says. "It was assumed I'd know it all but I was not prepared for the difference between giving birth and adopting. You don't have nine months to prepare, you don't go through the birth and you don't breastfeed. I was completely a nurture not a nature person - I didn't think nature mattered - but I've changed my mind. I wasn't aware of the differences that I would feel or that Louise would feel as a result of us not sharing any genes. With my son, there was an instant bond. With Louise, there wasn't and every way you turned, it seemed she was different to us. If we had brown sugar, she wanted white. If I cooked something, she wanted (an instant microwave meal).

"Even now, if my son comes to stay, we have plenty to talk about. It's natural and easy. With Louise, we have much less in common. I don't love either of my children more than the other but the nature of the relationship is poles apart."

Unfortunately, Louise did not interpret it this way as she was growing up. "I felt like my brother was the golden boy and that I was the black sheep and I felt less loved than him because of it," she says.

"In fact, it wasn't until I was 27 that I told anyone I was adopted. I was ashamed of it before then. But then I started thinking about finding my real mother, which I did, and somehow that journey made me realise that my parents didn't love me less, just differently."

Nancy Verrier, author and publisher of The Primal Wound: Understanding The Adopted Child, believes all children who are separated from their mother suffer a trauma that will affect their bond with their new parents, regardless of the age at which they enter that new family. "I wouldn't say that I love my adopted daughter or my biological daughter differently - I would do just about anything for either of them - but I would definitely say the bond is different and I know now that is inevitable," she says. "An adopted child has had their bond with their mother broken once, so they're not going to let it happen again."

For many children, this manifests itself in testing-out behaviour, she says. Even if this type of child is adopted as a baby, they tend to keep a psychological distance. Because they never quite fold into the new mother when she cuddles them, the phenomenon has become known as the stiff-arm baby. At the other end of the spectrum is what's known as the Velcro baby. These children react to the fear of their new mother leaving by being very clingy.

If anyone had told Nancy when she brought home her three-day-old daughter that rearing an adopted child would be different from rearing a biological child, she says she would have laughed at them.

"I thought; 'Of course it won't be different! What can a tiny baby know?' Now I know it's nonsense for anyone to suggest the bond can be the same. We are tuned in hormonally to what our natural children want. Psychologically, the mother and child are still at one for some time even when the umbilical cord is cut. Genes continue to play a major part in the relationship throughout life. The way you cock an eyebrow, how you stand or walk, gestures you make - all these are things that make children feel as if they belong. But because a lot of people don't expect adoption to be different, they can feel shock, hurt and resentment when their adopted child doesn't react to them in the way they'd like them to."

Some parents try to compensate for this loss. Bill Aldridge, who has three adopted and two natural children in their 20s and 30s, says: "There was always a sense for us that our adopted children required additional love to make up for the extra challenges they'd faced. I wouldn't say we loved them more but our feelings for them were combined with an overriding desire to make everything all right."

Bella Ibik, who grew up in a family of five birth children and four adopted children, says her parents also went out of their way to make the adopted ones feel special. "We were made to feel chosen, as opposed to the others who just came along - to the point that one of their biological children grew up with a bit of a chip on her shoulder," she says.

Bella, now 41, says she still feels surprised by how much her mother loves her and still has a need from time to time to examine the differences in her mother's feelings for all her children. "Yesterday we commemorated the 23rd anniversary of my brother's death. He was one of her blood children and I often wondered whether she'd have preferred it had it not been one of her birth children. We talk about everything, so I asked her and she answered as honestly and diplomatically as she could. She said that no mother would ever wish death on any of her children but that when I saw her cradling his head and talking to him when he was in his coffin - a childhood image I will never forget - she was thinking of him having grown inside her and she was thinking of giving birth to him."

Bella isn't convinced that whether her siblings were adopted or not is the be-all-and-end-all in the nature of their relationship with their mother. "Evie, her youngest, is her absolute golden child who can do no wrong. I'm sure that's because she came along just after my mother had been very ill and she sees her as her anchor in the storm. My point is that sometimes I think it's impossible to pull out adoption as being the only reason for a parent feeling differently towards her children."

Because today's adoptions often involve older children who come from backgrounds of neglect or abuse, they require what Jonathan Pearce, the director of Adoption UK, calls therapeutic parenting. "Of course, this is different to raising a biological child, just as it is different to raising an adopted child 30 or 40 years ago. It's a parenting that I think should include ongoing training - just as you have with any other demanding job," he says. "Does that mean the feelings are any different? Yes, they are. Is the love any different? I just don't know. It will vary from one family to the next."

Carol Burniston, a consultant clinical child psychologist, believes the requirement for adopters to parent therapeutically gives a tiny minority of them a psychological get-out clause, which again affects the nature of their relationship with their children.

"I worked with one adoptive mother who was suffering from a problematic home life who said: 'If it comes to it, I'll keep my children and let my marriage go.' You would expect a parent of a biological child to say that but for an adopter there was something very powerful about it. With a small number of adopters, there is something going on in the back of their minds that if they can't bear it any longer, they will give these children up."

For Lisa Bentley, who adopted a troubled 14-year-old when she already had four birth children, there was never a moment when she thought about giving up. "In fact, I'd say that the love I have for her is strong and powerful - more so in a way than for my birth children - because there's nothing taken for granted about it," she says. "It's come from getting through enormous battles and from an undying commitment."

Angela Maddox believes the relationship between parents and non-biological children has more chance of being positive if any birth children arrive later. "We adopted three boys, now aged 22, 20 and 19, and when we later had two birth children unexpectedly - now aged 16 and 11 - the feeling of almost knowing your child before it's born took me by surprise. But I think the fact that the boys were already in our family helped them feel more secure than if it was the other way round. They had us first."

Angela says that while her husband relates to Rebecca Walker's philosophy, she doesn't. "My love is endless for all my children. You can love any child as your own. There was the different feeling around the birth but that's all."

A few parents even believe that giving birth is irrelevant in the bonding process. Unusually, Molly Morris - who has given birth to five children and adopted two - says, "I've never been able to make a distinction between children born to us and those we adopted. It's the nursing and handling, not the giving birth, that has given me the bond with my children."

Pam Hall disagrees. "There's something almost beyond words about the attachment you feel for your own baby. That's not to say you can't love another baby or child but it's quite a different quality of love. I think parents who have given birth already are usually - although not always - better placed to work at a relationship with a non-biological child because they've been through that. They don't go through life longing for it," says Pam, who has two birth children and an adopted child in their late 30s.

Pam, who has worked with adoptive families as a psychiatric social worker and an analytical psychotherapist, explains that parents who have had birth children tend to have a different motivation for adopting than those who haven't. "They generally aren't starting the process of adoption from a position of infertility, looking for a substitute for their own baby."

That's not to say it's always an easy ride. "I've worked with adopters who have been racked with guilt that they didn't have the same feelings for their adopted child. But that's all the more reason that we should stop this pretence that adopting is the same as having your own children. I'm not suggesting anyone should outline every detail of that difference to their children. That would be dire. But they do need to own the feeling and be OK with it."

Lucy Hoole, a 25-year-old adoptee, agrees. "There is something quite taboo about suggesting that parents feel differently to non-biological children. But I'm OK with that difference and see it as part of my life story that's made me who I am."